


yet, the soul is such an impeccable thing;

by esmlou



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Universe, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, F/M, Fix-It, Self-Loathing, Slow Burn, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:02:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28879164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esmlou/pseuds/esmlou
Summary: born into a bloodline with an age-old corpo background, "V" never expected herself to find such a rebellious streak occupying so much space in her head, nor could she have ever expected the sharp something that ultimately nestled itself near her heart.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand/Female V
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	1. bloodline

The blood on her blade wasn’t quite cold yet when she set herself to the task of carefully wiping it clean. She had long since stopped wincing at the sensation. 

The sensation of life having been lost so recently that the warmth of its existence hadn’t quite dissipated. A ghost in truth – something lingering in a world that it no longer belonged to. There was a distinct horror about it, still. Something that dug at her own humanity piece by piece. But V had stopped trying to count those little pieces of herself as she knocked them loose. They rattled out and to the ground like lost baby teeth day-by-day and she left them in her wake like a trail as she trudged on.

She couldn’t remember when she stopped wincing. She couldn’t remember when she stopped dry heaving over blood-stained fingertips and ruined clothing. She couldn’t remember when she stopped having to count to ten to calm herself after the final thrust of blade through skin and muscle and viscera – as a body slumped limply against her. Here were the things she could remember:

Her first kill. The betrayal that led to it. The struggle that began thereafter. 

She had heard it said that blood was thicker than water. She had never taken the time to find out when the saying exactly came to fruition, but she assumed it was from a time when blood was truly vital rather than a kind of option. Now, it was a way of the past. Back when humans only had their blood and their organs and their bones to keep them going. Now, everyone was a shell of that and of humanity too as a result. Titanium bones. Subdermal implants. Blood infused with synthetics. Long story short: blood meant so little. After all, it could only ever mean so much when it was diluted in parts, increasingly so as the years swept by like it’s own kind of necrotic disease and technology advanced with it. A growing kind of resistance to humanity, a growing ability to block it out entirely. 

She sometimes wished she had realized all of this earlier instead of only once she had lost her place as a daughter. As a _someone_. 

She sometimes knew it wouldn’t have a made a difference either way. 

It haunted her nonetheless. And she hated that perhaps most of all. Blood was thicker than water. Blood was thicker than water. And yet she had been forsaken by just that. Her blood. What did that say about her? What did it mean?

The subtle chime of her holo was enough to shake her from her thoughts. There was nothing but a transfer notification waiting for her, but it was enough to make her smile as she slid her katana back into its sheath with little more than a whisper of metal against metal. 

“Alright...what’s next?” She grumbled under her breath to nobody but herself as she peered out over the city from her rooftop vantage point. Below, the cars and people rushing by looked like little more than passing glints of light reflecting off an oil slick. It wasn’t an altogether inaccurate representation. She watched an altercation between two men with dwindling regard. Even from here she could make out the various gang paraphernalia they wore. A tattoo across the knuckles. A chain with a gaudy golden symbol. Across the street, a group of dolls paraded themselves as goods to buy. A few beggars lingered near the corners, groveling. Nobody was any the wiser to the dead bodies she had left behind in the building below her. 

The truth was, nobody would have really cared even if they were. 

When she was younger, her mother would purposefully drive their family's personal AV through landscapes such as this one. _See?_ she would say. _This what happens when you don't follow the rules. See? This is what happens when you don't do what you're supposed to._ Then, it had seemed like an important life lesson. Then, when she had been the child-version of herself with silken ribbons tied in ink-black hair that she was forced to keep long despite her own wishes. Her face always roughly scrubbed clean at regular intervals – as if she was inherently dirty in her existence. Her hands were always clasped together in front of herself, as she had been taught, back straight and mouth shut. She was meant to be seen, and not heard. Her mother had told her to follow the rules, to do what she was supposed to. She had taken the life lesson and assumed that one day – with enough rule following – her parents would decide she was worthy of their love. She had thought that, if she could learn to love their hard edges, their stern nature, and their unyielding decisions that surely they could set aside all of the things they had decided they disliked about her and grow to love her too.

Now, she recognized her mother's tactics for what they really were. Thinly veiled threats. Now, she realized that garnering their love was never in the cards no matter how she had played her hand.

The scene below her faded from focus as she pulled her holopad to the forefront of her sight and rifled through her organized notes — abbreviated contact details, potential contracts, pending jobs. Most of it coded in phrases and terms only she would understand even if she was hacked in some unfortunate but obviously unsurprising turn of events. Before she had a chance to come to any kind of conclusion, her holo rang in truth and she gritted her teeth as she reluctantly answered. 

“V,” the caller greeted her. She had long since gotten used to the name. Some days, it felt more _hers_ than Liliana ever had. Her mother’s constant berating always lingered in the back of her head — _always hated that name, it’s so tawdry, bland, meaningless_ — and she had never given herself the time to dwell on whether that was why she defected from it as soon as she possibly could. 

It was a distinct constrast to the other measures she had put in place to distance herself from her mother's approval since her fall from grace – shearing her hair into a short, angled crop with bangs, piercings along the curve of her ears and nose and eyebrow, tattoos wherever she decided to put one. The bangs might have been enough to make her mother sneer; the rest might have been enough to put her on her ass from sheer shock. There was an understated kind of pleasure in that for V. Even more thrilling to her was the idea that she looked so different now that she could stand across the street from her parents, watching them with unveiled interest, and never have them recognize her. It felt like the only way she could manage to say – _I was never really yours._

She had almost convinced herself that it was enough.

“I’m here.” She answered primly.

“Give any more thought to the job?” He asked. Always straight to business. She appreciated that kind of attitude more often than she felt any disdain about it. This wasn’t one of those times. 

V resisted the urge to grunt noncommittally. _That’s not polite. Manners. You weren’t raised in the slums._ She heard her mother’s voice, again. Felt the disapproval of her father’s heavy glare. “No,” She responded, instead. It was a lie, but it was the only answer that wouldn’t result in the demand of an _actual_ answer — are you in or are you out? The truth was she had thought about little else since the file had been transferred to her. _Out_ , her inner self screamed resolutely, with a kind of horror that surpassed even the innate atrocity that came from death – the sight of it, the smell of it, the feeling of inflicting it. This was the horror that came with being alive but _trapped_. So trapped. Even the thought of Arasaka was enough to send every process in V’s body whirring with fear. Fear that she masked as disinterest. _Why kick a hornets nest?_ She might of said. _Why let myself get that close to the devil ever again?_ Is what she would actually mean. 

“I’m not fucking around V,”

“I know,” She interrupted, because there was a time for the politeness enforced upon her from birth and there was a time for her the impoliteness the streets had taught her, too. “I’ll let you know. Soon.”

“Sooner rather than later. Little nobody like you could make something out of herself with this job.”

“I know. Talk later, Dex.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title comes from the poem [Sisters Riot](https://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/sisters_riot_1192314) by Rolyvianne Simanu. my playlist for Johnny and V can be found [here.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7IJ1gg3i3cVKaLIt6IGXO8?si=jIUjbGX-QduxNK_cTPL_4A) my tumblr blog dedicated to silverV can be found [here.](https://liliana-valerie-lamonia.tumblr.com)
> 
> all of my undying love to my best friend and the light of my life, [@poorashten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/poorashten), for editing this for me and dealing with my constant ranting about Johnny and V.
> 
> this is a slow start to set up some background about my V, bear with me - Johnny is coming very soon. tags will be updated as things progress!


	2. three of swords

Things had never gone this badly before. V could barely wrap her head around exactly how bad it was as she held her pistol with trembling hands, a bead of sweat rolling down her throbbing temple. And Jackie, just behind her... 

Jackie with that godforsaken Relic slotted into his head. Who knew what the implications of that even were? Would they even live long enough to find out? The thought made her stomach drop even lower, the weight of worry dragging it to the ground until she felt nauseous and overwrought with unease. She shifted her weight backward on her heels where she was crouched just to feel the heat of Jackie's body in her proximity and hear the shudder of his breathing a little more clearly. For now, he was here. Real and alive and as unmarred as either of them could be given their current situation. She winced as shots rang out from somewhere in front of them and resisted the urge to glance over her shoulder at him - seeking... seeking, she didn't know what. Reassurance? Guidance? Seeking that air of confidence Jackie always seemed to carry even when it was obvious the whole world was staring them down, aiming to trap them under it's boot? It was Jackie and her against the world. Against the world, against Arasaka, and against all the people who told them they couldn't make it into the so-called "big leagues" of the merc world.

"One for you," Jackie said under breath as a guard stalked in their direction, and even now V could hear the smile playing at his lips, as if they weren't the closest to death they had ever been during a job. As if he _didn't_ have that fucking Relic jammed in his neural-slot. As if he wasn't bleeding out, alternating between clutching his torso and the body of his assault rifle.

Across the way, the access pad to the elevator glared back at V like a beacon. Leaning forward, she edged around the opposite side of the barrier they were nestled behind. As she tracked around her target, Jackie took the opportunity to pop his head out - in her state of assiduity, whatever he shouted at the guard blurred into nothing but background noise. But his tactic did as it was intended to, the man paying no mind to her as she holstered her pistol and drew her knife instead. She made one final move, darting to his back and standing only when she was within range to reach around and brace her arms around his neck, slitting his throat with a quick jerk. She let his weight strategically slump against her as blood poured down his front and dragged him away out of habit. The tactic always reminded her of old videos she had seen depicting one of the many extinct a jungle cats with its kill.

Jackie was already at her side when she released the guard, the both of them running towards the elevator. Again, she was reminded of their perfect teamwork, their inherent synchronization. She felt her heart clench at the thought of losing that. Her eyes scanned over Jackie as the elevator began its descent, as if she might see some glaring change in him already, but all she saw was her best friend. A wince. A slouch.

She heard him groan something about Sabura, about the irony, the divine comedy of it all. But she was only able to focus on what he said enough to realize he was still making jokes. Still being overly diminutive, considering the situation. Her eyebrows drew together in response. It might have still been a comfort, if she didn't realize now how bad off he was. "Think this is funny?" She quipped back, frowning.

"Chill, V. We'll get out alive."

She didn't have time to respond before the elevator doors slid open, revealing a new hoard of guards to plough through. She wasn't so sure she believed him.

It was only when they made it to their Delamain escort, when she had dropped the drones tailing the car, when she had a moment to actually listen to the slam of her heartbeat against the cavity of her chest that she thought maybe, maybe they did have a chance. But even that thought was halted in its tracks when she turned to really look at Jackie, her mouth already opening in a stupid, toothy grin that she knew he would appreciate. He was so pale, and his own face was twisted into a grimace so uncharacteristic for him that it made her blood feel tainted with a chill, her smile dying away. A realization settled over her. She heard the echo of Delamain's words in confirmation, "Mr. Welles' condition is critical."

"Come on, Jackie. Only preem jobs from now on. We're going to be rich. Me and you. Me _and_ you."

Her face was wet and the biochip was in her hands. And then in her own head. It felt like the least important thing in the world, now.

"Mr. Welles has passed." _Mr. Welles has passed._ The words reverberated in her head like the echo of a stone dropped in an empty, hollow place.

The world shifted around V, as if some black hole had opened up right in the center and tugged resolutely at her. She sucked in a breath and found herself on the verge of hyperventilating. The car rocked to a stop. "Mr. Welles' remains...Where shall I take them?"

"Nowhere. Don't take Jackie anywhere. Wait for me here." She slid out of the car on unsteady legs, not altogether sure they were capable of holding her upright anymore but with no other options, she did as she always had and trudged forward. Up to room 'two-oh-four', up to fucking Dexter Deshawn.

He was exactly as V expected - angry, scared, uncertain. She wished she had the energy to match his. To yell back. But she could only focus on her desire to get back to the car, back to Jackie, and on the uneasy feeling that had settled over her before she even walked into the bathroom with instructions to clean her face. She watched the staunch, crimson-stained water as it circled the dirty drain - wondering all the while how much of it might have been Jackie's.

Somehow, she wasn't all that surprised when stepping out of the bathroom landed her flat on her back from a sucker-punch to the face.

Somehow, she _was_ surprised when she found herself staring down the barrel of a gun just after, Dexter Deshawn standing behind it. Fucking _Dexter Deshawn._

"What the fuck are you doing?!" She screamed, scrambling backwards. The last thing she felt was the moment of impact, her head rocketing backward so hard that she had the wherewithal to wonder momentarily if the base of her spine would be broken. And then everything faded to black.

The world turned into a series of flashes. A dark hallway. A girl with dark rimmed eyes, smelling of liquor, pressed against her. A crowd cheering in front of her, bright lights nearly blinding. A decidedly male voice, a kind of innate cadence about it despite its gruffness. The world rushing away from her below - a similar memory of her family's AV swirling somewhere under the murky surface. More fighting. Always fighting. The tower. An interrogation, strapped to a chair. And death - again. Death, finally.

She wasn't herself anymore, and yet she was. A world of code materialized around her. The shape of someone familiar and yet not swam before her.

"And you? Who are you?" He asked.

The next sensation she had was of her hands scrambling against the plastic of trash bags. The overwhelming smell of rot. A layer of grime clinging to her skin as she crawled through the refuse. Her body dragged close to the ground like a dead weight against her arms. The only thing pushing her forward was a persistent refusal to die like this – to die _here_ of all places. The sight of Dexter and the so-called Arasaka dog, Takemura, swam in front of her – disjointed, but there. She reeled back instinctively when Dexter was suddenly gunned down in the same way he had gunned her down. It was the quickest she had ever seen karma exacted. She wished she had time to relish in it.

She couldn't understand why exactly Takemura started for her next. She was already dead, wasn't she? She heaved a breath, startled by both pain and motion when Takemura hauled her to her feet. Suddenly they were in a car. Suddenly, she was slamming a MaxDoc into her own chest. Suddenly, she was waking on Viktor's table.

Jackie's body would be cold by now, she worried distantly as she came to.

She instinctively pushed against the metal beneath her supine body, only to be guided back down just as quickly with a kind of gentle, knowing ease. "Not yet, kid." Rasped a voice from somewhere over her shoulder. Vik. Somehow the comfort was worse than fear. At least fear had kept her going. Now, she knew she could curl into herself. Dissolve from the world. There was nothing in her way.

She whimpered. "Jackie."

"I know, kid. I know." He murmured, hand tightening around her shoulder.


	3. gently break it

V woke to rhythmic thudding, something solid rapping against the thin sheet metal of her apartment wall, and that voice. That same voice. Increasingly familiar. Gruff. Dulcet. "Gotta get out of here, understand?" 

No, she didn't understand. Everything V _had_ understood felt turned upside down. 

_Mr. Welles has passed._

She shifted subtly in her bed and her body answered by screaming in protest. The intensity of the pain left her nearly out of breath. The cold metal of an unfamiliar necklace rolled against her chest – the chain Misty had given her, the bullet that had been in her skull hanging from it. 

"And I'll kill anyone that gets in my way. You included." The voice continued. She only managed to blink her eyes open when she felt the weight of someone over her. Under normal circumstances, she would have already been putting up a fight, but her body wasn't quite as apt to follow her mind's lead right now, and instead she was left staring in doe-eyed wonder at Johnny fucking Silverhand. He glitched away and she was prompted to follow, carefully inching herself out of the bed, eyes seeking him out again as her brain worked to wrap itself around what was happening. 

How could this possibly be real? She gingerly lifted a hand to rub at her eyes. Viktor had explained it to her, but amidst a haze of drugs and distress, things hadn't really clicked into place. Not until now, as her mind reeled to catch up. 

"Need a smoke. Where'd you stash yours?" He insisted from the corner of her apartment. 

"I don't smoke." She answered in turn, as if this wasn't the strangest thing she had ever experienced. She could have imagined a lot of bizarre conversations within bizarre situations if someone had asked her to do so before now, but never in a million years would she have come up with this one. Especially not in this specific way, with this specific man. 

"Then go out and get some. Just need one last one!"

"Jesus fucking christ." She groaned, moving her hand from her eyes to her temple as she turned carefully, away from the image of Johnny, intending to take a deep breath, maybe count to ten, anything to bring her down from the dizzying spin the world was suddenly doing around her. 

He instantly reappeared in front of her as she did. She was too stunned to do anything about it as he wrapped his hands around her shoulders and shoved her backwards onto the floor. She couldn't help wailing in agony as she hit the ground – the sound only stifled when she bit down on her lower lip. But Johnny was relentless. Pressure spread across her already throbbing ribcage. Her hands moved toward the source of their own accord and found the soft leather of a heavy boot. He pinned her down, and she felt stupid as she instinctively squirmed beneath him, struggling to breathe. The forced helplessness hurt her more than the physicality of it. 

And it felt _so_ real, despite the swirling glitches of code that reverberated off of Johnny's only half-opaque form. 

"Who ya work for?! Start talkin'." 

"Please," She gasped, clawing wildly at his boot, reaching for his leg. He reached for her too, and she winced in anticipation of another blow. Their mad scramble only ceased when their hands nearly met in the middle and suddenly the motions of their fingers mirrored each other – an inch apart but a perfect reflection. 

"Fuck," they said in unison, their voices overlapping. A bated breath passed between them, until realization dawned on Johnny a moment later than it had for V. 

"Fuckin' chip...I'll rip that thing out myself." He said, already descending upon her despite her pleas.

He hauled her to her feet and spun her, pressing her face against the cool glass of her apartment window. He cupped her jaw from behind, his fingers rough where they splayed against her skin, rings heavy against the fine bones of her face, and then he twisted her head to the side until her neck ached. The image of his face glimmered into view as a reflection, just behind her own. Her breath fogged the glass, but only for a moment before the unyielding fingers of Johnny's metal hand tangled in her hair, sharp-edged segments catching on strands and ripping them from her scalp as he forced her head back and then shoved it forward. Again. And again. She heard more than felt her nose crunch somewhere between the first and fifth slam. Her eyes watered, turning Johnny's reflection into little more than a blurry halo of blue light. Her whole face felt blistered with the blinding throb of resulting agony. Her blood splattered the pane in a lazy ooze. "I'll take control." He said in her ear and the noise alone was enough to make her violently shirk away in fear with a muffled groan. "I'll find a way. You hear me?!"

When he flung her away, she slid across the tile flooring. Suddenly, the only thing in sight was the bottle of abandoned beta-blockers that Vik had given her. She took her chance to crawl towards them, arm outstretched. She had to get rid of him.

"Not like that," Johnny said down at her, kicking the bottle away. The sneer on his face was evident in his voice. "Stick some iron in your mouth and pull the trigger."

His boot connected with her stomach next and she was forced further across the floor, stopping only when her back slammed into the partitioning wall surrounding her desk. She vaguely wondered who was screaming. Some far-away part of her brain knew it was her. 

She could hardly hear him over it – as he paced back and forth in front of her fallen form, sporadically glitching across the apartment. She caught only snippets of whatever he was saying amidst his apparent tirade. Even as the screaming died away, a droning veil of white noise replaced it. 

Turning her head, she noticed a scatter of pills that had fallen from the bottle Johnny had kicked. The bottle itself lay upturned and cap-less a few feet away. She blindly reached in their direction and could only just manage to collect a single stray between shaking fingers before quickly shoving it between her lips. Unsure of her ability to swallow before Johnny could rip it from her mouth, she bit down on it immediately instead, and the bitter contents coated her tongue. She tilted her head in time to watch Johnny's form ultimately flicker from view and then lay panting on the ground, fighting against the pull of unconsciousness. 

She wasn't altogether sure how long she lay there, but long enough to witness the last hours of daylight turn to darkness and all the lights in the city gradually flicker on. She watched the far-off flashes with a vague interest, unable to fully focus her eyes on them. Distantly, she thought Vik might be mad if she had damaged her optics again. 

She wasn't altogether sure when she became cognizant of Johnny's return to her psyche, either. She braced herself for a second round, feeling relatively certain that she wouldn't survive this one. But nothing ever came. Johnny never even materialized before her. She exhaled a breath she didn't realize she had been holding, wincing against the movement it required of her chest, and let her head remain limply lolled against the floor. Blood from her nose steadily dripped down the back of her throat as she canted her chin to stare up at the ceiling, counting her still-staggered heartbeats to ground herself in some small way. In the background, her radio droned on, some old rock song crackling through the speakers.

Her mind drifted further, and all she could think was that her parents had gotten their wish after all, it seemed. The thought alone was enough to bring tears to her eyes. She realized she was weeping too late to stop herself from giving into the swell of sadness that had settled over her. Jackie was dead and cold, and his body was god knows where. And her own autonomy, her future, everything she had worked to reclaim from her parents – from Arasaka – were chilling steadily too as the seconds ticked on. A dying thing.

She only stirred when she finally had the means to pull herself to the shower, where she stripped herself bare and sat beneath the stream of water until it ran cold. 


	4. bloodletting

"What did you mean?" She heard above her where she sat cross legged on the floor of her weapon locker, "About your parents getting their way?" Johnny's voice was no longer a kind-of-familiar-but-not thing to her but instead, the sound of one of the many things that had haunted her feverish dreams the last few nights.

She startled backward, hand closing around the hilt of the katana gently set across her lap while she tended to its maintenance. It was the only productive thing she had been able to bring herself to do in the three days she had spent trying to recover, all while fearing the next moment Johnny might show up and undo all the healing she had managed to do. She brought a knee to her chest instinctively, protectively, and regarded Johnny's figure from where she sat. He seemed oblivious to the change in her posture and the spike of her pulse, and simply stood – waiting. 

"What? I never said that." She finally answered, her voice sounding meeker than she intended. 

It dawned on her after a beat, that shehadn't _said_ it, but that he had heard her anyway. 

"It doesn't matter." She thought pointedly in his direction, understanding now that verbalized communication between them was unnecessary. What she didn't quite understand, though, was the fact that her memories weren't entirely off limits to him either. 

"What's an organic proxy?" He continued, and she grimaced at the question, knowing that his prodding had already brought all the memories she had of this particular part of her childhood flooding to the forefront of her mind. She tried to push it all away again, as she so often did, but his interest seemed to keep it all riveted right where it was. Her head throbbed in response at the internal conflict. She dropped her forehead to her palm, clutching her temples between her forefinger and thumb. 

"I don't know, okay?!" She said through gritted teeth. "It's just something I heard my parents say - it's what they intended for me to be. They got their wish because now I am – or will be eventually, according to Vik." She felt him recede from her mind in parts and the blooming haze just behind her eyes faded with his retreat.

"I'm _assuming_ it wasn't meant to be you – but some other important somebody that Arasaka shoved onto a chip somewhere. But this is how the fucking cards fell." 

When she glanced up at Johnny again, he merely stared back. Her eyes searched his face for the first time in truth, but he seemed too busy processing what she had just told him to mind much. 

"Happy?" She insisted, seething and trying to force some kind of response from him in turn, but she only earned herself a noncommittal shrug.

"Why would they do that?" He finally asked. It had been a long time since someone reminded her that what her parents had done was abnormal to anyone and horrific to most. She hated having to unpack all of the things she had folded up neatly into boxes that she allowed - encouraged - to collect dust in her mind.

"Corpos." She said, and this time it was her turn to shrug dismissively.

Something flickered across his face, and for the first time since this whole ordeal started, V was reminded of who Johnny Silverhand actually was. Asshole rockerboy – yes. But anti-corporation extremist and so-called terrorist, too. He had hated Arasaka with a burning passion long before V had ever been a thought. There was a strange sense of comfort in that. A sliver of common ground. 

"I think you broke my nose," She grumbled in his direction, turning her attention back to her katana in order to have something to do with her restless hands. 

"Yeah. Feels like it." He answered, and she blinked, understanding that he could feel whatever she did too. She truly had lost everything that was hers. "At least it's still straight." He offered, his voice somehow lingering resolutely between making a joke of her injury and offering a genuine concession. 

"Hm," she hummed, finally guiding her katana back into its sheath. 

It wasn't lost on her – that she had completely neglected Misty's advice before she had left V in her apartment three days ago. _If_ _Jackie was here, he'd tell you to get your ass out bed in the morning and do what you needed to do._

This was as close as she could come to following through on that right now. When she had blearily woken to the thin glimmer of early morning sun through the metal slats of her window-blinds, it had been Sunday. And Sundays had been reserved for this for as long as V could remember – tending to their weapons. Her, right where she was currently, and Jackie across the way on her couch, some stupid show on the television and her griping the whole time about him getting gun grease on her things. _Nah, V. Never,_ he would always coo back at her in that over-grown puppy dog voice. The one he only used with Misty and Mama Welles. And her. 

It had been hard for her then, to conceptualize how much he had loved her. Now, she felt the loss as tangibly as she could feel her bones aching while they mended themselves. 

"The girl was right, you know." Johnny chimed in.

"I don't remember asking you." She bit back automatically, glaring in his direction again. "And she has a name. If you're in my thoughts, you must know it."

Johnny didn't seem particularly swayed by the logic. They stared back at each other, silent for a moment.

"Is that why you decided to stop hurting me? Because you could feel it all through my mind?" V added.

"Somethin' like that."

She knew it was as good as she was going to get in way of an answer. 

"Your parents were corpos but you obviously aren't," he said with a vague gesture in her direction. 

"Is that your way of asking why not?" She snorted, one eyebrow arched in his direction. His impertinent nature was wearing on her already. For three days she had wished she had some inkling as to what was going on with him. Now she missed the dead silence already.

"I know how corpo family's work."

"Obviously not all of them."

"If there's one thing I know about a corpo-rat, it's that they follow the rules. And the rule is that corpo's keep the tradition going. So – why not you?"

 _Rules, rules, rules._ Johnny wasn't wrong and she disliked him even more for that. 

"I got out when I realized their intentions. I was never their daughter. I was just a body to them." For them. For them to use, to climb the corporate ladder. "So, technically speaking, I didn't break any 'traditions.'"

"Yeah, you got out and went buck wild. Decided to be a little merc with big dreams, right? Chop your hair and get as many tattoos as you could. Couldn't scream daddy issues louder if you tried."

She let his insults hang in the air, unanswered.

"Sorry," He amended, "Daddy _and_ mommy issues."

"Let me know when you're done." She said with a huff, shuffling to a stand in order to replace the weapons and tools she had pulled from their places.

The truth was that the idea of him having seen those memories was like a scalding itch under her skin. Those memories, they were _her_ things. Precious and hidden and horrible. But what could she do about it?

She burned in silence.

"I'll be done as soon as you're done sitting in this apartment having a pity party."

She wheeled on her heel at that, straightening her spine to stand at her full height as she turned despite the way her body complained at the action. She couldn't stop herself from lifting a hand as she approached him, jabbing a finger in the space where his chest would be. For some reason, she didn't expect to come into contact with anything, she expected that his image would simply give way to swirls of code against her accusatory finger – despite their precious physical altercation – but instead she was met with something warm and solid. It was almost astonishing enough that she reeled backward. And she probably would have, if he hadn't already managed to spur her on with such efficacy. 

" _You_..." She started, poison dripping from the edge of her voice. " _You_ beat the _shit_ out of me."

"And? You're tough."

"And? And, my best friend in the entire world is dead. And, I fucked up the biggest job I've ever had. And, I escaped Arasaka's clutches only to have them shoved into my fucking neural slot right before a bullet ricocheted through my goddamn skull so now I'm stuck with it. With _them_."

Johnny didn't seem deterred at all. He craned his head down at her, peered at her over his ridiculous aviators. "Don't know what all got scrambled in there," He said, lifting his own hand to thump the side of her temple. "But _I'm_ not fucking Arasaka _._ I'm Johnny Silverhand. Don't forget it." And with that he smiled, and she could only just make out the resulting crinkle at the corner of his eyes. She growled and reached to rub his most recent point of assault on her body. 

"I fucking hate you, Johnny Silverhand." She said, her voice twisting his name like it was its own insult. Her free hand pushed against his chest instead of pointing as she shoved past him out of the weapon's locker. She felt him let his weight stumble backwards and out of her way, like he was just humoring her efforts for his personal enjoyment. It only made her angrier. 

"Get out of this apartment. Today." He said with a disciplinary kind of air about his voice. It reminded her of a parent scolding a child. "Or I really will figure out a way to take over your body." Then, he glitched back out of existence. 


	5. an eclipse of consciousness

She did leave the apartment that day. But not because of Johnny's insistence, although the smug satisfaction that radiated off of him said enough about whether or not he believed that. 

She left the apartment after receiving a call from Takemura. Only then, and _only_ because of that. 

Stepping out onto the street, the world greeted her with a kind of airy surrealism. She felt as if she had been left behind in her absence and now, she was playing catch-up. 

It was bright outside, and she couldn't deny how good the sunlight felt against her skin.

"Hm," Johnny hummed pompously. Seeing his form glitch into existence in broad daylight, other people rushing past him but never acknowledging his existence was a little more jarring than she was ready for. 

"Just shut up," She thought as loudly as she could manage, while denying herself the pleasure of glaring in his direction – conceding to his presence herself, outside of the privacy of her apartment, just wasn't a hurdle she felt that she could manage today. She lifted an arm to block the sun's direct rays as she tilted her chin upward. A familiar haze of smog hovered between the highest point of the sky and the some of the shorter skyscrapers. 

She sighed, relishing in the warmth for a moment more before starting forward. It was a short walk to the diner Takemura had insisted they meet at, so she made her way down the street, her subtle holopad overlay gently guiding her in the right direction with little yellow blips even though she already knew the way. 

Seeing Takemura tucked into booth in a dirty, forgettable diner was just another startling visual for her to deal with. She fought the urge to turn and leave before the man glanced up and noticed her. 

Exactly as she expected, she could see their constant spin as it happened, talking in consistent circles once they got going. It reminded her too much of her parents.

 _This corporation can save you as easily as it can make you disappear,_ he had said,and V hated that Takemura tried to act like the whole of Arasaka wasn't rife with rot. Every positive thing about it was only there to cover a dozen negative things – like decorative rugs laid neatly over a decrepit floor. 

She felt herself breathe a little easier when he stood, walking away from her and out of the diner without any fanfare. But her ease was quickly superseded when Johnny suddenly appeared, taking Takemura's newly empty spot at the table. She eyed him warily. 

"Night City never changes. Arasaka's still a despotic machine and the worlds on a collision course with chaos. But hey, at least Rogue's still alive."

"You know, you really have a lot of nerve. First, you're out to kill me, now you wanna be my pal? Make like nothing happened?"

"You know you don't gotta speak out loud to talk to me."

She gritted her teeth, fighting the flush that threatened to color her cheeks as she looked around herself for any onlookers, embarrassed by the idea that someone would have heard her outburst. She _did_ know, and he knew that too. 

"What do you want?"

"I've processed some shit. Changed my mind."

"Go fuck yourself, Johnny." 

"Hey, wasn't easy for me either. You woke up in a landfill, I woke up in your head. Wrestling with your thoughts, feelings. Think we're even. And I've taken step back, looked at things. Think we might be able to help each other. We could start with Rogue. Her and I go back to the stone age."

"Yeah? You decide all that sometime between breaking my nose and insulting me?"

"Trust me, don't trust me. I don't give a fuck. It's the least of our worries, anyway."

"There is no 'us,'" She insisted in return, resisting the natural inclination to speak aloud in the midst of her teeming anger. She slammed both of her palms down on the table, pushing herself to a stand and exiting the diner the same way she had entered, leaving Johnny still sitting at the booth. 

Rounding the door, the relic malfunctioned for the first time since her week-long stay with Vik, and it nearly made her legs buckle beneath her from the shock of pain and the surprise of her own body rebelling against her. She tried ignoring it at first, despite the minor stagger she couldn't prevent it from causing in her step.

Johnny was decidedly not ignoring it, though. 

"That the relic?" He asked, and she thought she might have already lost her mind when she registered what might have been an inflection of concern lacing his tone.

 _What else would it fucking be?_ was a thought that barely blossomed into maturity before another stab of pain riveted through her body, radiating outward from somewhere in the very center of her skull. 'RELIC MALFUNCTION DETECTED' flashed urgently across the front of her vision. 

She dipped into a nearby alley – thinking that she would be damned if anyone else witnessed the moment of weakness, this moment where she lost her perfectly honed control. One other person was already more than enough. She thought she heard Johnny scoff at that. She glanced down at her shaking hands, willing them to steady, but fighting the ebb of pain only seemed to make it worse.

"You're bleeding." Johnny said from where he leaned against the dirty wall across the way from her. 

She reached to touch just below her nose, suddenly aware of the warm trickle against her skin there. Sure enough, her fingertips came away bloody. She examined the fresh crimson stain for a moment before rubbing it away on the dark fabric of her jean shorts. "S'okay." She murmured, and she wasn't entirely sure why her first instinct was to comfort Johnny about it – after all, he had already broken the very same nose. 

When she looked at him again, he was looking away. 

"It's only going to get worse," She said with a huff, pressing her finger beneath her nose to halt another trail of blood. Her brows pinched together. She resisted the urge to sniffle, knowing it would only be counterproductive.

"I know," He answered, still not looking at her.

"Upset that the body you're going to eventually get is going to be already be broken in? Too secondhand for you?" She snapped at him without thinking about it first. Responding in anger was her best defense mechanism, second only to completely stonewalling.

She knew that her parents had intended to put her on ice as early as possible for that reason exactly. It had always just been a waiting game. Maybe Johnny ascribed to the same logic, now.

Johnny did look at her then. She returned the gaze with hatred in her heart. He looked stuck somewhere between anger and...guilt?

He lifted himself from the wall, ambling towards her with a lazy intensity that made her instinctively search for escape. She always had been able to before – escape, escape whatever came for her. Her parents, her pre-planned destiny, Arasaka itself. Escape, escape, escape. Always running. And her mind had always been her safest place, but now that had been infiltrated too. How could she escape her own mind? Would she want to even if she could?

"I _told_ you," He grumbled, crowding her against the wall, raising one arm to press his palm against the brick, level with her face and effectively blocking her path back out of the alleyway. "I _changed_ my mind."

" _What_ is that supposed to mean?" How could something made entirely in the synapses of her mind, feel _so_ real? She could have sworn she smelled him. The burn of cigarette smoke she could have easily passed off as a byproduct of the alley, but the underlying leather and wood-spice that pressed into her senses so strongly she could almost taste it absolutely couldn't be placed as anything from their disgusting surroundings. "What is with you and getting in my fucking personal space?" She pressed, if only so that she could ignore the distraction his nearness had begun to present. Her lips curved in a sneer.

"Our personal space," He answered coolly, flicking the butt of his cigarette onto the ground next to their feet, the smoke it put off swirled into the air with shadowy edges that glitched into strands of code intermittently. She felt like she might burst into flames from the sheer insolence. And the worst part was, she could feel how much he liked that – liked the effect he had on her.

" _My_ personal space," She snarled back, ducking under the arm he had caged around her and stalking off into the crowd of the streets with one last swipe at her still-bloody nose.


End file.
